Stake to a line

Read your station and offset along any line or boundary live, or walk to a typed station and offset, on grid or ground, with cut and fill from a design surface.

On this page

Stake to a line treats any line or boundary in the project as an alignment. You can read where you are along it as a station and an offset, such as Sta 3+50.00, 10.00 ftUS R, or type a station and offset and walk to it.

Before you start

  • A line or area with at least two vertices. It can be one you collected, one you imported, or a LandXML alignment (see Import design points, lines and surfaces).
  • A projected coordinate system for the project. Without one, stations are measured on a local projection centred on the line, in metres.
  • An RTK receiver if you're setting stakes. Phone GPS is several metres out.

Open line stakeout

There are two ways in:

  • From Tools: go to Tools → Stake to a line. In Stake to line…, tap the line. The row is greyed out until the project has a line or area.
  • From an asset: tap a line or area on the map or in the list, then tap Stake to this line (station & offset).

The Stake to line screen opens full screen. Tap Done to leave.

Set up the line

At the top of the screen:

  • Where am I or Stake a station chooses the mode.
  • Grid or Ground chooses how distances are measured. The note under it says which is in use. See Grid or ground.

Under the line's name:

  • Start station is the station of the line's first vertex. It starts at 0. A LandXML alignment opens on its own start station from the file.
  • End station shows where the line ends.

Stations run from the first vertex, and around a boundary and back to it. Offsets are right or left looking up-station, toward increasing stations.

Stations are written the way they're written on a stake:

Zone unit Station format Example
Feet or US survey feet 100-foot stations, two decimals 3+50.00
Metres 1000 m stations, three decimals 0+350.000

Where am I

Where am I shows your station and offset live, in large type, for example Sta 3+50.00 and 10.00 ftUS R. Offsets always say L or R, or on line, never a sign.

  • Before the first vertex or past the last, the position is measured on the extension of the end segment. An orange note says Before the start of the line or Past the end of the line.
  • More than 300 m from the line, the screen shows how far away the line is instead, because a station that far off isn't a useful place to stand.

Tap Stake this station to copy your current station and offset into Stake a station.

Stake a station

  1. Tap Stake a station.
  2. Under Target, type the Station, as 3+50.00 or 350.00.
  3. Type the Offset as a distance in the zone's unit, and choose Left or Right. Leave it empty to stake on the line.
  4. Walk to the target. The screen shows:
    • the distance to the target, in green when you're within tolerance,
    • how far to move along the line: Ahead 12.30 ftUS (up-station), Back … (down-station) or On station,
    • how far to move across it: Move right …, Move left … or On offset,
    • Within tolerance when you're there, with a haptic,
    • your current station and offset, under Now at Sta ….
  5. Choose a Tolerance, or tap Type a tolerance… to enter your own. The presets and limits are the same as in stakeout, and the last tolerance you used is kept.
  6. Set the stake, hold the pole still, and tap Save as-staked point.

The button then reads Stake recorded, and a note gives the name it was saved under. Change the station, offset, side or grid/ground choice to stake another.

If the station can't be read, the footer says Write the station as 3+50.00 or 350.00. An offset must be a positive distance: use Left and Right for the side.

Grid or ground

Stations and offsets are computed on the project grid.

  • Grid: distances on the zone, in its unit. The note reads, for example, Grid: distances on NAD83 / Kentucky Single Zone (ftUS), ftUS.
  • Ground: grid distances divided by the combined factor at the line's first vertex. The note gives the factor, for example Ground: grid distances ÷ 0.99991234, the combined factor at the line's start.

The choice is remembered, and it's saved with every stake, so a station never changes meaning without saying so.

Cut and fill at the rod

If a design surface covers the spot where you're standing, a Grade section appears, named after the surface:

  • At the rod: for example Cut 0.25 ft or Fill 0.08 ft. Cut means the ground is above the design: material to remove.
  • Design: the design elevation at that spot.

The rod's elevation above sea level is compared with the surface, and within 0.030 m counts as on grade. The section needs a projected coordinate system, a surface in the project's zone (or one that doesn't name a zone) and a fix with a height.

What the app records

Each as-staked point is saved as a Check Shot point named after the line and the design station, for example Staked: CL Sta 3+50.00, 10.00 ftUS R. It carries the full position record, like any collected point, and these attributes:

Attribute What it holds
line The line it was staked against.
design_station, design_offset Where the stake was meant to go.
staked_station, staked_offset Where it went.
station_basis grid or ground.
residual_m Distance from the target, in metres.
tolerance_m The tolerance, in metres.
cut_fill, design_surface The grade at the rod, when a design surface covered it.

The notes repeat the design and staked stations, the basis, the residual and the tolerance, so the as-staked list reads on its own in any export.